New blog! (New to me anyway.) Author notes Toscano seems to work harder when he teams with Rush. Cancerberos are probably happy with the win, but disappointed that this is the time they manage to beat the new guys from GDL. Opener was really good, as it usually is.

This should might have been a sell out – it was already 80% full by the time the opener started and looks full in the late photos. CMLL’s draw well in Guadalajara lately and here too. I have no explanation why. Palacio Negro Fever?

Like this:

This originally appeared in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (sign up! or don’t!). Normally I’d paraphrase, but since Dave Meltzer has had a rough week with misquoting, it’s presented in full

Mistico has made inquiries about coming in. When Mistico was super hot in Mexico, they were in talks with him and he did a tryout match behind the scenes one day in San Jose and everyone was impressed with his chain wrestling. But he was making so much money in Mexico that it made no sense to leave. Because of how people like Psicosis and Super Crazy were treated, there has been a stigma among the wrestlers in Mexico that if you go to WWE, you’ll just be topped out unless you’re Mysterio so people who were stars in Mexico didn’t want to risk it. Even in recent years, when WWE has made inquiries with El Hijo del Santo, he was leery because when he was here in the 90s WWE wanted him to take off his mask, and that’s his very being and would see it as disrespecting his late father. But now that Del Rio is being groomed for a headline position, it’s made people think less negatively about their chances. But how many top stars in Mexico have Del Rio’s size, and he really is a special case.

This is the third or fourth time this particular story has come and gone. The last time was early this year. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mistico suddenly got a big feud to start 2010 and I wonder if that’s as much the motivation as actually wanting to go to 2011. While CMLL is a tournament laden coma at the moment, they’re about to put together their plans for 2011 and this is a nice reminder that if Mistico doesn’t get something to do, he might actually have more options.

It certainly means something that this rumor gets out; as far as I know, this is the first time recent discussions between Santo & WWE have ever been publicly revealed. That never got out, and it’s about as a big a deal. (It also cast a new light on Santo’s recent column in Record weighing the tradeoff of Del Rio joining the WWE while losing his mask. He had to do similar math for himself.) I don’t know if Mistico is any more likely to go this time than the last few, but he surely wants people to know he might.

We’ve had the discussions about what this would mean for CMLL the last couple times, so it doesn’t seem worth repeating. The one thing that’s changed this year is Sombra could much easier take over the spot as the new top tecnico. Still, he wouldn’t be a Mistico level star unless he manages to surpass

Randomlly, Perico accompanied the tecnicos in the main event. (Fantasma also replaced the double booked Mascara.) Perico and Cuije battled. Perico even pulled off a dive! Sombra pinned Olimpico for the iwn.

Angel de Oro took the lost in the semimain to Skandalo. CMLL has noticed how weird it is Angel de Oro is not teaming with the other Angels in the latest tournament, and pretends there’s a plan behind it. I’m more concerned that they’ve developed from running angles at press conferences to running angles in press releases. Only a step away from the only storyline development happening on twitter and absolutely not in the ring or on TV.

Recap actually lists Trueno in the opener, but I’m in no position to point out the wrong people being listed.

Links

SuperLuchas is running website awards, starting with promotion of the year. I neglected to mention their new iPod/iPad app, but it’s because I’m holding out for the Android version.

A Wagner promotion show, the annual Christmas one here. There were a couple more undercard matches unreported. Poor turnout for this, though I think it may look worse than it actually is since all the shots show the empty grandstands and not the full-ish sections near ringside.

Still no word who the Pierroth Jr. was – the only picture of him is from far away. Lider showed up in IWRG the next day with just the sides of his head cut, not far off from his normal look, and it didn’t make any sense for him to lose. Silver King & Relampago ran in to help Pierroth Jr. I wonder if it was perhaps someone very familiar under the mask, and the promotion was worried about an angry response to an anti-climatic reveal. Lucha promotions don’t usually worry about that, but there’s not many reasons to do what they did.

Zorro fouled Wagner for the pin. Wagner wants a title shot on the next show here. No date for that.

Molotov will replace Guerrero Maya in this Saturday’s Reyes del Aires. ESTO says Maya will be out an indefinite time due to contracting hepatitis, and they’re still waiting to find out what type it is. The lead story in the article is the first confirmation someone in CMLL knows Mistico is headed to Japan next month. I was getting a little bit concerned.

When Lucha Libre USA announced it’s first show at the Hard Rock in Albuquerque, it was promoted as the new home for all the tapings. One taping later, they’ve announced a show for San Manuel Casino in California on 01/20. No mention of it being a TV taping, but all the shows they’ve announced previously were at least planned to be TV tapings.

Nikita reviewed Low Rider vs Drastick Boy. Low Rider turns up in DTU/PdM/IWL early matches, but actually started out as a US indy guy who moved down to Mexico (and is some how related to Super Crazy.)

Another Hijo de Cien Caras tribute show, with LA Park again dressing in his gear and pining Zorro. If Volador’s missing from CMLL any time in the near future, it’s for working this show, though they were careful to put him in a match without AAA wrestlers. Hijo de LA Park picks up his first mask, beating Imagen: Luis Sanchez, 42 years old, 18 years a wrestler, from Houston.

Did I ever mention the WON said Vampiro was done with AAA? There it is. It doesn’t seem like new news because Vampiro’s been missing from AAA TV for a while (besides the strange YouTube video) and it doesn’t seem like news that’ll stick because Vampiro is done with places many times and then ends up coming back or in other places. At some point, he’s going to be done for good and I guess it could be this time, but I’m still going to keep expecting him to be around the next corner for some time to come.

12/26 ACM: Mascara Dorada & Dragon Rojo show up. We find out what Dorada is like when he isn’t doing crazy flying stuff (answer: a small man.) I recapped this, only to figure out there were probably like 40 better editions of this show, perhaps including the DTU show. I think I’m recapping Simbolo/Angel de Oro to make up for it. I think Difunto I just did another scissors kick.

ECLL is on reruns and may be permanently so. LATV might have just run out of episodes for 2010, but Saturday is a new year.

TeleFormula’s show is here and has Dragon Rojo vs Sombra, which is really good even if it does turn it every finish they know. Actually, except for the cavernaria, which is incredibly unlikely in CMLL and with Dragon Rojo. He does pull out another surprise submission attempt.

If you haven’t heard, the Samurai TV version of CMLL’s Anniversary show has finally hit the internet. WarriorsX2000 has it up on his channel. Best match was another in the Blue Panther vs Hijo de Avernos secret feud. The Angel de Oro/Fabian el Gitano cage match smoked the Anniversary one, it’s not even close. Did remember there was supposed to be a Psicosis/Histeria/Alebrije vs Ultimo Guerrero/Atlantis/whoever feud that seems to have been dropped.

Main event was advertised as a three way, but the Perros showed up before the match and turned it into a trios. (So they didn’t advertise them, I guess.) Latin Lover was booed and walked out of the match for a while, but came back and his team won. Demon and Santo teased they’d do the mask match right here right now if only security wouldn’t keep them apart.

I’m guessing the policy against working with Santo does not apply to Latin Lover.

Pollo looks too young to be Brillante (Jose Salas), so @billzero suggested he may be Kevin (Juan Salas) using Brillante’s name. Brillante was on the Ras de Lona prior to Dos Leyendas (at the public workouts to hype that match) and did not look like the unmasked man.

Super Nova is still committed to Lucha Libre USA, and mentions trips to Turkey and India. I’m actually more concerned that Kru Demon has the same leather jacket as Super Fly. Maybe he’s the missing piece?

There’s more, but Santo needs to post his posters in a big larger size. People banned from working with CMLL people? I don’t know if they’re still doing that. On the other hand, there was a day not long ago when this would surely out draw CMLL’s show here on Christmas, and now I’m not sure.

Main event tecnicos are going to be so booed. Sombra & Dorada are likely off to to Japan after this show.

Dragon Rojo celebrates his win by not being on the show. The serious feud of Mephisto & Fantasma involved Porky and Son this week.

They remembered to run the Reyes del Aire this year! They also did on a week where it won’t air on TV, unless they save it 12 months for next year’s Best Of. Tecnicos vs rudos this year, so the King Of Flyers might be notable high spot artist Polvora. Should make it good for catchine people and such, but they could find eight other tecnicos to be in this match easy. I assume Angels or Double D are winning another thing. Cesar has a longer preview.

Arkangel replaced Fuego. That went well until Maximo kissed Arkangel by mistake, and Arkangel turned on his team. No sign of the Sangre Azteca turn.

As expected, Rush’s team won. He appeared to suffer a reoccurrance of his chronic shoulder dislocations in the first match, but still finished with the win. Not much was made of it outside of CMLL’s Twitter, so perhaps it wasn’t too serious after all. Fans were cheering the Cancerbero after the main event.

If Rush, Angel de Oro, and Diamante win next week, and they’re the heavy favorites, then the title match will be The Guy Who Won The Poll versus The Two Guys Who Did Not Win The Poll But Are Basically Doing Just As Well. Cesar has a longer piece pointing out how this tournament is really not helping to elevate anyone.

Mercurio has already appeared in GDL and Puebla, but this was his DF debut. I thought he looked like a good prospect on GDL.

Some changes in match order and participation here. Copa Junior was announced as the main event, but turned out to be the semimain. Main event was totally unnoteworthy – Mistica on Atlantis – so it didn’t need to the main event.

Maybe someone decided the finish to the tournament was too underwhelming to be the main event. It was certainly too underwhelming for the end of a twenty man tournament. It was three fall match with each taking an early fall. Finish saw the ref go down, Dragon Rojo foul Averno, the ref being distracted from the pin, Averno fouling Dragon Rojo, and the ref seeing that foul. Dragon was able to get pinfall wins over Mascara, Sombra and Volador, but not Averno in the final?

It’s very possible they’ll be back against each other next week, because CMLL’s announced Rey del Aires for next Saturday. It’s nice they remembered to run it for 2011, but we would not expect it to make TV anywhere (except maybe TFN a year or two from now?)

Averno & Mephisto fought just like in the recent GDL match. Dragon Rojo celebrated his Copa win by losing to La Mistica.

Tiger turned on Puma in a cage match again. Maybe they’re just going to do that in every cage match. Final three were Cocolores, Dr. X, and Hermano Muerte III. Hermano Muerte II tried to stop Cocolores from leaving, but the Payaso eventually snuck by to escape. Hermano Muerte III was exhausted in his fight with D.r X, and fell to a nudo. Hermano Muerte III is Juan Cárdenas Romero, 15 years a wrestler, from DF.